1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a connector with a movable member to facilitate connection with a mating connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,611,703 discloses a connector with a lever mounted on a first housing. The lever can be held temporarily at a standby position so that cam followers of a second housing can enter cam grooves of the lever. The housings are connected by displacing the lever to a connection position. The connector includes means for temporarily holding the lever at the standby position, a return preventing means for preventing the lever from returning from the standby position to the mount position, and a locking means for locking the lever at the connection position.
The means for preventing the lever from returning from the standby position to the mount position and the locking means for locking the lever at the connection position are provided separately on the prior art lever-type connector. Thus, the housings and the lever have complicated shapes.
Lever-type connectors generally have a substantially U-shaped lever with two arms that mount to the housing and a connecting portion that extends between the arms. Operational efficiency can be improved by enlarging an operable portion of the lever taking in the thickness of the housing. However, this enlarges the entire lever-type connector.
Some lever-type connectors have been miniaturized by providing a substantially plate-shaped lever that extends only along an upper surface of the first housing. The plate-shaped lever then can be displaced along the upper surface of the first housing. However, the operable portion of the plate-shaped lever must be made thicker because it is difficult to manipulate an operable portion that is as thin as the remainder of the plate-shaped lever.
In the lever-type connector in which the plate-shaped lever is placed on the upper surface of the housing, the depth and width of the lever-type connector become smaller as the overlapping area of the lever and the housing increases. However, if the thicker operable portion is placed on the upper surface of the housing, the height of the lever-type connector increases.
The present invention was developed in view of the above problem and an object thereof is to simplify the shape of a connector and/or to miniaturize it.